Saturday, August 04, 2012

Mind blown: "I have never spent a single moment of my life in fear of being sexually assaulted"

Mentioned in passing by Corey Mintz in his Fed column with Stephanie Guthrie:

No one has ever paid me less because I’m a man, and I have never spent a single moment of my life in fear of being sexually assaulted.


This blows my mind. I have spent every moment of my life in fear of being sexually assaulted, starting the day that I was 9 or 10 years old, saw the word "rape" in a newspaper article, and innocently asked my mother what it meant.

Fear of sexual assault isn't the dominant emotion at all times, of course. Most often it's shuffled pretty far down the pile, underneath things like "What's the best way to manage this enormous project I've just been assigned?" and "It looks smoggy outside" and "What else was hidden in the omnibus budget bill that hasn't come to light yet?" and "I should call my grandmother" and "When are the Cortland apples going to come out?"

But it's always present. I'm always aware of it, like how you're always aware that you might get hit by a car or lose your job or get cancer. So the idea of someone having never spent a moment in fear of being sexually assaulted is as mind-blowing to me as the idea of someone who has never, even for a moment, worried about losing their job.

Gentlemen: does this reflect your reality?

4 comments:

laura k said...

"As a woman, I organize my life around the threat of sexual assault."

The first time I read and heard that, my mind was blown at the recognition of truth. Exactly as you say here.

My sense of things is that this man's statement is typical of most first-world men.

Even though men can be (and are) sexually assaulted, the risk of a stranger attack is much lower.

laura k said...

I realize I wrote that quote wrong. It's:

"As a woman, I organize my life around the threat of sexual violence."

I don't know who wrote it originally. It's used frequently in feminist writing.

impudent strumpet said...

I wonder if this is why my father seemed to assume that I hadn't put any critical thought into the motives of the guys who deigned to spend time with me.

laura k said...

You're onto something there. It's why my father didn't believe that street harassment exists, and didn't believe rape can occur if the assailant doesn't have a weapon. And etc.